Amid Uncertainty, Los Angeles Board Approves Reform Plan

The Los Angeles board of education last week unanimously approved a
wide-ranging reform plan that has been touted as the last, best hope
for revitalizing the troubled district.

The 7-to-0 vote, however, came amid continuing concern over both the
district's financial condition and the details of the recent agreement
averting a strike by the United Teachers of Los Angeles.

The plan created by the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for
Restructuring Now, a community and business group representing more
than 600 organizations, calls for budget and decisionmaking authority
to be moved to the schools. Principals, it says, will be the "decision
leaders'' of the schools and will be held accountable for their
results.

The plan also calls for fundamental changes in student learning and
assessment, professional development, parent involvement, social
services, transitions from school to the workplace, facilities, and
finance. (See Education Week, Oct. 21, 1992.)

Mike Roos, the president of LEARN, called the board's approval of
the plan historic.

"The fact is that in this community, for the first time that anyone
can remember, everybody is really on the same page of the book,'' he
said. "There is consensus on what we must do, how to do it, and how to
behave toward one another--at least at the leadership level--and that's
important.''

The implementation of the plan is expected to begin this summer in
three clusters of schools, each composed of a high school and the
schools that feed students into it.

The $3 million cost for the project will be raised from private
sources, Mr. Roos said. About $2 million of that amount will be spent
to train teachers and principals.

The rest of the money will pay for coordinators to work with the
three clusters, more counselors in the schools, and new student
assessments, according to LEARN.

Conflict With Contract?

Although the LEARN document is viewed as the board's official
policy, there is much disagreement over whether it will mesh with the
provisions of the new teaching contract hammered out by Willie L. Brown
Jr., the Speaker of the California Assembly.

The most controversial aspects of the pact give elementary teachers
the right to pick what grade they will teach, based on seniority. In
multi-track, year-round schools, teachers can select their grade,
subject level, and track assignments based on seniority.

Some district officials argue that giving teachers such discretion
contradicts LEARN's intention of putting principals in charge of
schools.

Eli Brent, the president of Associated Administrators of Los
Angeles, the principals' union, argued that under such a situation it
would be unfair to hold principals accountable.

"If they want to give us our paychecks and they run the school--it's
a U.T.L.A. school--then just say it,'' he said. "But we don't want the
parents coming to us complaining. This is not a factory where the
person with the most seniority puts in the widgets.''

But Mr. Roos dismissed such concerns as a "red herring.''

He and Catherine M. Carey, the spokeswoman for the teachers' union,
said the union will grant waivers from the contract to allow the first
LEARN schools to operate free of contractual restraints. A similar
procedure is now used for school-based-management sites, they
noted.

"The LEARN school will determine whether or not to do the
assignments in the contract,'' Ms. Carey said.

The union spokeswoman also noted that principals will retain the
right to write the descriptions for positions and to determine the
qualifications teachers must have to fill them.

Barbara Boudreaux, a school board member who is a former principal,
said she was not satisfied with the waiver provision.

"I still do not believe we will be getting waivers for all the
schools that would enter into the LEARN plan,'' she said.

To clarify such concerns, Superintendent Sid Thompson and Helen
Bernstein, the president of the U.T.L.A., met last week in Sacramento
with Mr. Brown. They were expected to agree on final language for the
contract late last week.

Ms. Carey said the meetings were not expected to result in any
substantive changes to the agreement.

In addition to restoring 2 percent of the 12 percent pay cut over
two years imposed on teachers and other union members, the pact
contains a number of other provisions sought by the union, including
guaranteed pay increases for members if the district receives any new
money; cash bonuses to employees who do not use all their sick days; a
guarantee of 10 percent bonuses for U.T.L.A. members if other
bargaining units are given the same raises as teachers; and bonsues
equivalent to the amount of the pay cuts for retiring teachers.

The union also will design and contract for its members' health and
welfare plans and will take responsibility for all
professional-development activities.

The contract also relieves teachers of having to use a special
format for lesson plans, requires the district to inform teachers in
writing of student transfers for disciplinary reasons, and gives union
members greater access to telephones, restrooms, lounges, lunch areas,
and parking spaces.

The agreement also calls for the district to allow the union to
participate in and review an audit of its management operations that is
now under way.

The audit was proposed last fall by Mark Slavkin, a school board
member, to try to put to rest persistent questions about whether the
district is managing its resources and personnel efficiently.

The district is spending $500,000 to have the accounting firm Arthur
Andersen & Company review its central functions. The firm's report
is due in mid-May.

No Word on Funding

Perhaps most importantly, there still was no word last week on how
the district will pay for the contract, which is estimated to cost $36
million this year and next.

Initially, officials had said they would use the district's $31
million reserve fund to pay for the agreement this year.

Mr. Brown had pledged to secure waivers to allow the district to use
state aid set aside for textbooks, bilingual education, and counseling
services to pay for the contract next year.

But early this month, officials learned that a drop in property-tax
collections would cost the district an additional $20 million.

Because of the shortfall, members of the board of education voted
last week to send layoff notices to more than 500 employees, most of
whom are attendance counselors, librarians, nurses, and music
teachers.

The Assembly Speaker also has proposed creating a federal
urban-renewal pilot program in South Central Los Angeles, the site of
last year's riots, and diverting some of the money for that effort to
the school district.

Mr. Brown and other members of the California legislature traveled
to Washington to meet with President Clinton on March 10. Although Mr.
Brown broached the urban-renewal-project idea at that time, the visit
was overshadowed by news that nine military bases in California are
scheduled to be closed.

Maureen DiMarco, the secretary of child development and education
for Gov. Pete Wilson, said last week that Mr. Brown had not requested
any waivers to allow the district to redirect its earmarked state
funds.

But if he does, she added, there is "serious doubt'' they would be
granted. Allowing the district to use the restricted money as it wants
would require approval from the state legislature, she said, rather
than the state board of education. She added that such waivers would
conflict with a law designed to insure that districts are fiscally
solvent.

In order to open schools on time in September, she noted, the
district must not only find the $36 million to pay for the teachers'
contract, but also restore a 1 percent budget reserve as required by
state law.

If it cannot come up with the money, the county office of education
could take over the district.

The continuing uncertainty has created a gloomy atmosphere, Mr.
Brent said.

"It's a catastrophe for a school district that was once a
showplace,'' he said. "It has now become a place people run away from.
It's a sad commentary.''

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